


There Is A Haro Lost On The Public Transportation

by PoisonHemloc



Category: Gundam 00
Genre: ...not really season 2 spoilers but like spoilers about the opening of episode 9? I guess?, Gen, Ian shows up but not enough for me to want to tag him, losing important things on public transportation, set season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27712432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoisonHemloc/pseuds/PoisonHemloc
Summary: Lockon is supposed to leave Haro on Dynames when he's heading back to space. He decided not to, once.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	There Is A Haro Lost On The Public Transportation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StrayLiger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrayLiger/gifts).



> There's a decent chance one/two/everyone is out of character, this is the first thing I've done for this fandom and I'm coming from "main character is uncomplicated/has few emotions" thing which was easier to write.
> 
> The prompt for this that I took from StrayLiger was "Neil leaves Haro by accident in a form of public transport and spends the whole day running after him" and I laughed. I stole a couple of headcanons from him, too.

He wasn’t supposed to have Haro with him, he knew that, not out in public, but Haro was friendly and while he had never started talking to the workers who unknowingly prepared Dynames to go back to space, Neil Dylandy, now better known as Lockon Stratos, was always a little worried that today would be the day and even if _his_ cover wouldn’t be blown, the other meisters would have to retrieve his Gundam from whatever authorities tried to confiscate it while he fretted on the sidelines.

Haro had been instructed to remain quiet and in his bag while he was out and about, but it would take a few hours for the shipment containing his Gundam to be ready and he wanted- not good food, he knew that, but something with some kind of _taste_ \- before he went back into space, and there was a place near the orbital elevator that made something that was quick and fast and _cheap_. 

The bus driver drove like he was angry; Lockon held on to the chair in front of him as the man took a turn faster than he felt a bus should then grunted as he was thrown into the seat back when the driver stopped suddenly. At least it was his stop; he grabbed his bag and climbed past a couple of people to get off.

He made his way to the restaurant, tapping his bag as he went. Something was worrying him, but it was probably the same anxiety he always got when one of them was heading back into space via one of the elevators; he could ignore it.

He was halfway through what was probably a burger and fries when he realized his bag was lighter than it should have been.

The orange Haro was gone. Where could it have gone it had been in his bag when he’d gotten on the bus-but not when he got off it. He couldn’t remember Haro in his bag once he got off the bus. He stared at the possibly food, trying to remember the bus number, the route, before remembering his ticket, forgotten after he shoved it into a pocket, probably had it printed on it and he desperately rifled through his things looking for it.

This was fun. Lockon had a new game, it was be-quiet-as-long-as-you-can. He hadn’t turned Haro off or even turned off the speakers to make the game more fun. And he had walked off the bus after Haro rolled out of his bag on accident, after they went over a sharp turn. Haro waited, under one of the seats, as more people got on and off. Lockon would come back in a few minutes; Haro wanted to win this game and would be quiet until they were on the train into space like Lockon said.

Bus 32. Its route took it past the elevator and into the ritzy part of the city and then over to downtown and back. He could just wait at this stop for it to come back in who knew how long but Haro might be gone by then- picked up by anyone, really- or the bus might be headed to the terminal and done for the day. He couldn’t afford to wait, either; if Dynames was in space and he wasn’t there was going to be a ton of issues, including having to talk down a pissed off Tieria and maybe finally seeing Sumeragi actually angry, as well as whatever happened if they found out he lost the Haro. He frowned, trying to come up with another option, but he didn’t have any; he’d have to get a cab. He’d been planning on sending money to Lyle this month, to help with college and whatever else he was doing. Even though they hadn’t talked since last year, and Lyle wouldn’t like what he was doing now, they were still the only family each other had left and he did what he could, but he could send whatever was left with a note. Sorry, had something come up, here’s what I could send. It wasn’t like he’d get a response. Still frowning, he checked the route again as he hailed a taxi. How far along was the bus already?

He gave an address hopefully far enough in front of the bus it wouldn’t be there yet and told the man he’d tip him fifty percent if he got there in five minutes, then frowned as something started vibrating in his pocket. His phone. He knew this number. 

“Feldt, is something wrong?”

“Dynames is being delayed another three hours. We changed your ticket already.”

“Okay. I’m sure I can find something down here to keep myself busy.” He could find Haro and be back at the elevator easily now, with the delay. He finished making the appropriate noises to end the call and shoved the phone back into his pocket as the driver pulled up. 

How much more that cost hurt, but this bus stop was very close and a bus was just pulling up. 

Not the bus he was looking for. 

“Sorry, ma’am, I forgot some of my stuff on bus 32, you wouldn’t happen to know where it is?” He smiled politely as the driver reached for her phone. 

“What’d you loose?”

“An orange ball, it has some blinking lights. It’s a birthday present, talking thing, for a baby cousin.” She nodded, now trying to get him to stop talking. 

“It’s four stops further along, Victoria street next to the Lathrop building. I can’t make that and keep everyone on time, sorry. Try the depot to pick up whatever it is tonight.” She nodded as he stepped off and she closed the doors. Four stops up, he checked the map on the bus stop. He couldn’t run that far and they were probably moving already. Another taxi would be too expensive, especially if it wasn’t there. But there was a cheap rent-a-car place not too far away. He checked what bus stop was eight along and then hurried to the rental dealership. 

Lockon hadn’t come back yet but Haro could record that Haro was winning. Haro almost started talking to the small girl peering at him from the seat above but stopped just in time; no talking until they were on the elevator!

The girl giggled as she climbed down to crouch next to Haro, parent holding a one sided conversation and not paying attention. She dug around in her parent’s bag for a moment before brandishing a packet of shiny, holographic, glitter covered stickers. Haro flapped at her, but that was just encouraging, and now there was a sticker on one flap. 

It was a very pretty sticker, when she showed Haro. More would be okay. Lockon might like them. Haro rolled a little, letting the girl place more stickers, before her parent- lightly scolding, she should know better than to sit on the ground of the bus, where was she even putting those stickers- left with her, leaving Haro, decked out with stickers, under one of the seats, waiting for Lockon again.

More money he hadn’t wanted to spend but Lockon had a rental car now, glad he had decided to keep his driver’s license up to date rather than try to make counterfeits, even if it was buried in a corner of a closet in his bunk on the Ptolomey most of the time. He parked it in the closest lot to the stop and ran over, just as a bus pulled away. 

_His_ bus pulled away, he could see the number on the back. He ran back to the car and peeled out of the lot but it was already gone and he didn’t remember the next stop it made. He drove around randomly for a few minutes before parking in a different random lot, pulling out his phone to try and find the schedule online-

-and there was Feldt, calling him again.

“Hello? Feldt, just calling because you missed me?”

“Sorry Lockon, Dynames was delayed again.” That caused him to glance at the clock on the car and realize that getting this beater car and driving had taken more time than he thought; from here he would have to dump it somewhere to get to the elevator on time and he couldn’t do that, with the car rented using a license with his actual name on it. “Another couple hours, probably. We think there’s an issue with some of the colony materials going up. I know this is a little nerve wracking-” Feldt continued talking as Lockon thought. Another hour, probably, that would cover returning this and getting back to the elevator. He had maybe two hours to get Haro. And he couldn’t rely on Dynames getting delayed again.

“- you still there?”

“Yes. I’ll see you when I see you, I guess, since who knows how long this’ll take.” He hung up as Feldt said goodbye and went back to checking the bus route. It followed this same road until it took a right back towards the elevator. He could find it, it had to be nearby still.

There was another person above Haro. There had been a lot of people since the little girl and a lot more people since Lockon had left. This person sat down and shoved a bag in front of Haro. And a few minutes later, went to grab the bag and grabbed Haro, instead.

“Huh?” They looked around then back at the little sphere. “Look like some little girl’s missing you.” 

Haro almost answered, but the game. Haro would win the Lockon’s game. They looked around and muttered “No little girls here” and then shoved Haro back under the chair. A few minutes later they picked up their bag and left when the bus stopped again.

He had the route for the bus pulled up on his phone and was following it. It had to be along here somewhere, he could overtake it and get on at the next stop.

He wasn’t seeing it. It hadn’t been that far ahead, he should have driven past it by now. Now he was getting nervous. Where was it? He had almost looped around back to the elevator. It had to be along this route somewhere.

Lockon checked the clock again. It had really been almost six hours since he got off the bus to get a cheap greasy meal that really had not been worth any of this trouble. He had maybe an hour and a half to find Haro.

“I don’t know, I feel like someone is in here.”

“We checked and the bus is empty. Are you sure you want to just call off like this-”

“Yes. I don’t want to be checking over my shoulder the rest of the evening. You already got 57 to cover the rest of my route, I’ve got sick leave I can use.” Haro listened to the conversation. The bus driver had parked here, had walked up and down the bus but hadn’t seen Haro, who rolled behind him and hid under the seats. Lockon liked to hide Haro if there were lots of people nearby, and hadn’t wanted the bus driver to see Haro when they got on, so Haro decided that the bus driver wasn’t supposed to see Haro, while the other few people were probably okay. The driver walked off the bus and away and Haro sat in the middle of the aisle, wondering when Lockon was going to come back.

Eventually, actually calling the bus company was going to occur to him but Lockon swore that it had taken him another fifteen minutes of driving around to realize he could call and ask where the bus was and if anything had been on it.

“Sorry, Mr. Dylandy, nothing was left behind on that bus. The driver got sick and left early and we checked.” He just hung up. The man would think he was rude but that was fine. He had to check the bus himself; hopefully Haro was just hiding on it. If not… 

Most of the Haro units were hooked up to Veda. He could find his Haro that way, if he had to, but that meant letting everyone know he had lost the little orange ball and he would do a lot of things before he dealt with the fallout of taking Haro where he wasn’t supposed to and then losing the little robot. 

This was the depot. Lots of parking space to store the buses, little building up in front, fences everywhere. No cameras, hopefully, at least none he could see. And no barbed wire on the fence, that helped a lot. The rental was parked a few buildings away, the sun was setting, and no one was visible nearby; Lockon hauled himself over the fence, landed harder than anticipated on the ground and held still, listening, while his feet throbbed. No shouts, no movement; he stayed cautious but made his way to the parked buses.

Here was 32. The door was locked, but some of the windows were open. He grabbed one, pulled himself up til his head was level with it, and whispered “Haro?” 

There was a flash; and there was the orange Haro, rolling into a little area illuminated but a street light… and covered with gaudy, holographic stickers. 

Haro couldn’t float on Earth and couldn’t roll up the side of the bus to get to him; Lockon shoved the window over as much as he could and pulled himself up and into the bus, biting his tongue rather than swear when he landed on the backrest of the chair. He picked up Haro, the unit trying and failing to flap at him due to all the stickers covering it, but staying silent. 

“Is someone there?” He ducked down quickly, holding the Haro to his chest; of course there was a security guard. 

Not a very dedicated one; he was only around for a minute before Lockon heard him wander away. He glanced out the window, cautiously, and saw the man walk into the little building.

“Time to go,” He muttered to Haro, pushing open a window on the other side of the bus and inelegantly dropping out, carrying the unit close to his chest. Then over the fence, grimacing at the ripping sound when the pants cuff caught and left a nice handwidth tear in what had been his most presentable normal pants, back to the car hoping none of the buildings nearby were residential and some kid was going to post a “bus depot robber” video on the net before he got back into space, drop the rental back off while internally cursing how much more it cost because he couldn’t recharge the car before he returned it, back to the elevator in another taxi that cost more money, through security- which was a joke, for him, they never checked anything he had and after he had come through forgetting he had an unloaded rifle in one bag he had stopped caring- and onto the train with only a few minutes to spare.

Feldt called again, as the train lurched into motion.

“If you’re going to tell me Dynames was delayed again I finally got on the train and it’s too late.”

“No, Dynames just left too. You should be in the clear, but Ms Sumeragi has something when you get here.”  
“Then I won’t delay once I’m up there. Should be an hour and a half.”

“Good. We’ll be waiting for you.” And she hung up. Alone in this compartment Lockon finally took Haro back out of his bag and stared at the stickers for a minute before the unit flapped as much as it could at him and he remembered what he had said early this morning. 

“You can talk again, Haro, good job staying quiet today.”

“It was fun! It was fun!”

“How’d you get all these stickers on you.”

“A little girl! A little girl! Then she left. Then she left.”

“How about I take them off. Can’t have the other Haros get jealous.”

“Okay. Okay.” The unit sounded sad about that but leaving them on meant he would have to explain how they got there.

He was finishing scraping the last sticker off as the train docked. “Whatever they made those stickers out of is stronger than any of the mobile suits the AEU has.” He finished scrubbing his hand on his pants to get the last of the sticker residue off as the doors opened. He glanced around the compartment and grimaced to see the glitter residue covering the chair he had been in. Worse, it was on his pants. “Stay quiet in there until we’re on Dynames,” he added to Haro as they joined the line of people heading into this station.

“What’d you do to your Haro?” Lockon turned in a panic, but Ian just pointed at the unit flapping like there was still sticker residue gluing it up.

“Some kid spilled soda in my bag.” Not the most believable lie but what he had settled on as he brought Dynames to the Ptolomey. “I thought I got most of it off. I’ll deal with it after I talk to Sumeragi.”

“Suit yourself.” And Ian went back to working on something on Virtue as Lockon grabbed his orange Haro and gently pushed it into his room so he could clean it again after he checked in with Sumeragi. He checked no one was nearby and whispered “Don’t tell anyone what you did today, okay? It’ll just make them jealous.”

“Okay. Okay.” Haro still sounded sad about not sharing the adventure with the other units but that would be step one to the rest of the ship finding out Lockon had lost a Haro for the better part of the day.

Lockon passed back through the hanger doors, followed by a now clean Haro, and almost ran into Ian, who looked unhappy. Rather than say anything he raised a hand covered in glitter.

“There wasn’t tons of it but it was everywhere in the Dynames’ cockpit. Are you going to blame that on some kid too?” Lockon hadn’t realized the glitter was still on his things after he changed to his uniform; Ian’s mouth twitched when he saw the look of panic he got. “Tell me what happened later. But if you don’t tell me, I will tell everyone else.”

“Deal.” Ian might chew him out a little but wouldn’t tell anyone else he’d lost his Haro for most of the day; he nodded, heading towards Dynames, as Haro flapped next to him.

**Author's Note:**

> Ian is going to laugh and then chew Neil out once he finds out what happened but won't tell anyone. 
> 
> But I like to think, in the future when Sumeragi is out, there's a drinking game going on and someone says “never have I ever lost a haro” and Lockon definitely pauses for a second before shaking his head no. Feldt is next and says “never have I ever temporarily lost a haro” and gets a long, disgusted look before Lockon drains the rest of his drink and announces he’s out and leaves before someone can question him.
> 
> (just in case it's necessary I did go back and edit this once I realized I used a pronoun for Haro I was trying to not and. Failed, apparently)


End file.
